“They all stayed pretty long,” said Jane,
“but the last ones said they had to go home
to their dinners when papa came, a little while ago.
Johnnie Watson was carryin’ Flopit for that Miss
Pratt.”

William dropped into the chair beside which Jane had
established herself upon the floor. Then he uttered
a terrible cry and rose.

Again Jane had painted a sunset she had not intended.

XV

ROMANCE OF STATISTICS

On a warm morning, ten days later, William stood pensively
among his mother’s flowerbeds behind the house,
his attitude denoting a low state of vitality.
Not far away, an aged negro sat upon a wheelbarrow
in the hot sun, tremulously yet skilfully whittling
a piece of wood into the shape of a boat, labor more
to his taste, evidently, than that which he had abandoned
at the request of Jane. Allusion to this preference
for a lighter task was made by Genesis, who was erecting
a trellis on the border of the little garden.

“Pappy whittle all day,” he chuckled.
“Whittle all night, too! Pappy, I thought
you ‘uz goin’ to git ‘at long bed
all spade’ up fer me by noon. Ain’t
’at what you tole me?”

“You let him alone, Genesis,” said Jane,
who sat by the old man’s side, deeply fascinated.
“There’s goin’ to be a great deal
of rain in the next few days maybe, an’ I haf
to have this boat ready.”

The aged darky lifted his streaky and diminished eyes
to the burnished sky, and laughed. “Rain
come some day, anyways,” he said. “We
git de boat ready ‘fo’ she fall, dat sho.”
His glance wandered to William and rested upon him
with feeble curiosity. “Dat ain’ yo’
pappy, is it?” he asked Jane.

“I should say it isn’t!” she exclaimed.
“It’s Willie. He was only seventeen
about two or three months ago, Mr. Genesis.”
This was not the old man’s name, but Jane had
evolved it, inspired by respect for one so aged and
so kind about whittling. He was the father of
Genesis, and the latter, neither to her knowledge
nor to her imagination, possessed a surname.

“I’d hate it if he was papa,” said
Jane, confidentially. “He’s always
cross about somep’m, because he’s in love.”
She approached her mouth to her whittling friend’s
ear and continued in a whisper: “He’s
in love of Miss Pratt. She’s out walkin’
with Joe Bullitt. I was in the front yard with
Willie, an’ we saw ’em go by. He’s
mad.”

William did not hear her. Moodily, he had discovered
that there was something amiss with the buckle of
his belt, and, having ungirded himself, he was biting
the metal tongue of the buckle in order to straighten
it. This fell under the observation of Genesis,
who remonstrated.